This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I would assume the processes involved in producing things like steel and concrete are amenable to electrification. Most serious suggestions for how to tackle climate change come down electrifying as much as possible and generating as much clean electricity as possible. Of course for this you need a lot of nuclear energy, which is needlessly politically contentious.
Kinda. Right now, every ton of steel with a blast furnace requires about 3/4 ton of coal to produce. Eventually, electric arc furnace production will become greater, but it will be a multi-decade process.
When it comes to concrete, there are also improvements to be made, but the chemical process unavoidably creates carbon emissions. There is no such thing as concrete without massive emissions.
I've been quite bullish on coal, but China's made amazing leaps here. I wouldn't be surprised if in 7-10 years they're off of met coal entirely. It is really shocking how quickly they've been erecting EAFs. India, the US etc. are different issues, also recycling vs. new steel.
That's incredible. I hope it happens.
That said, I used to own coal stocks. I follow some coal people on Twitter and they never mention this. This would seem to doom most met coal producers as a zero, but companies are actually trying to diversify out of thermal coal and into met because it is perceived as having a longer shelf life.
I'm happy to believe that coal company CEOs are morons...
Oh no, they are smart. Especially e.g. Glencore.
But China currently has 150m tons of EAF capacity, with about 3 years of average construction time. (But they don't fully utilize the EAFs...) They have 900m of other capacity vs. the US at 200m total. I'm not sure if they will make a full transition or become comfortable with say 4-600m tons of total capacity (since cheap infrastructure's been largely built out for the coming decades), but both seem feasible. They don't have such plans, but I'm quite shocked how many EAFs they've erected since Covid. Previously, I thought it was impossible for met coal demand to decrease, but exited after really engaging with this.
That said, India's the main driver for met coal demand (especially higher grade like Warrior's) and they consume a lot of coal. Potentially, China could dump "green" steel into India at some point, bur if India engages in protectionism, well... There are also issues with scrap.
It's also quite interesting to see China using nat gas for heavy vehicles (trucks, construction equipment) while investing heavily in hydrogen. That's caused a 10% decrease in demand already. I suspect that in a few years, they'll be able to put up a (local) price ceiling around $80boe.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
For now on the concrete side. We have new processes in the works. At the end of the day, new technology is the only feasible solution.
What processes? There are proposals to reduce carbon emissions in concrete production but as far as I know it can't be eliminated.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Iirc the CO2 from concrete comes largely from the production of lime from calcium carbonate, which is hard to eliminate without new processes.
There have been various attempts to produce carbon-light concrete (or some similar replacement) but as far as I'm aware they are all decidedly inferior as a construction material.
Part of the problem with climate change is that reducing emissions gets harder and harder the farther you go: there's low-hanging fruit like coal-fired power generation which basically has no downsides to eliminating, but every element after that becomes more difficult. You need concrete and steel to build the hydro dams and nuclear reactors and train lines you want. You need oil to produce food and clothes and electric cars. Plastic is universal because it is universally useful. Our entire modern existence and quality of life is rooted from fossil fuels and so it's very difficult to pull out the bottom Jenga piece without the tower falling over.
Well, except for the fact that people don't like to shiver in the dark and every other method of generating baseload power is also opposed by environmentalists (and the renewables tend to get opposed as soon as they appear to become practical)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link